Steve Garfield is an advisor to media and internet companies about online video, a speaker at conferences on mobile video broadcasting, video producer and teacher of New Media Tools for Journalism at Boston University.

Q6 When did you start using Twitter and how were you introduced to it?

I don't like how twitter changes full URL's to shorted URL's after I've spent a lot of time fitting my post into exactly 140 chaaracters. After the tweet posts, I get mad when I see the URL changed into a tinyurl.

Q11 If you could make changes to Twitter what would they be?

If I could make changes to twitter I'd add a group functionality.

Q12 If you Tweet from a PC or a Mac which Twitter applications do you use and why (e.g. main Twitter site, Tweetdeck etc)?

I use twhirl because it allows me to have multiple windows open at once.

Q13 When posting Tweets via mobile, what applications do you use most (e.g. Twitteriffic, Tweetie, Twinkle etc)?

Q15 Do you actively seek followers? If so how do you go about increasing your followers?

I've got a message on my blog that says:

Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

That let's people know where the action is.

Q16 Do you automatically ‘follow’ back or are you more selective?

I automatically follow everyone who follows me. If they turn out to be a spammer, then I unfollow.

Q17 If looking for people to follow what attributes do you look for?

I look for funny.

Q18 What type of behaviour would make you unfollow someone?

I stop following someone if they repost the same tweet over and over again. Sometimes I'll unfollow someone of they post a tweet that breaks my browsers window, like typing in, "ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!"

That's annoying.

Q19 What tips do you have for newbies?

Read others nad see how they are using twitter. Be real. Don't just autopost your blog titles. Make it fun!

Q20 Do you use an auto welcome message?

No.

Q21 How do you find new people to follow (e.g. Twellow, Summize, friends of friends etc)?

I usually follow friends of friends, twitter links on blogs, and people I meet in real life.

Q22 How many Twitter accounts do you have? If more than one - how many actively used?

I have two accounts and actively use them both. On my main account @stevegarfield I follow 6,379 people and on my secondary account I follow 118.

Q23 What are your views on Magpie?

Haven't looked into it.

Q24 Do you know what hashtags are and do you use them?

I use them for larger events and conferences when part of the experience is following everyone else's tweets.

Q25 Qwitter - do you use it? If someone unfollows you do you reciprocate?

I do use Quitter. I think it's funny to see what makes people quit you. I usually don't reciprocate.

Q26 If you agree that Twitter should be monetized do you have any suggestions how?

I wouldn't mind seeing a reasonable number of inline ads.

Q27 What other social media communities do you belong to? Which do you use more often?

1. Grab the nearest book.2. Open the book to page 56.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

DO NOT throw your sword. You should have plenty of other sharp and deadly things to whip at people.

DO NOT stab, slice, or thrust toward yourself unlessyou are absolutely certain you can stop the sword before it stabs, slices, or thrusts you (demonized limbs are an exception).

DO NOT be hesitant about using y our sword in conjunction with another weapon. If it is a proper Ninja sword you should be able to attach chains and bull whips for building up speed an reaching around corners, bat shurikens, flip other nonjas, do anything your freaky mind can think of in the heat of battle.

You'll have to buy the book if you want to read more... There's too much to type...

Friday, November 28, 2008

OBAMA: (Laughs). This is a problem. I, you know, one of the things that I'm going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation ... the bubble that exists around the president. And I'm in the process of negotiating with the Secret Service, with lawyers, with White House staff ...

WALTERS: You might have a Blackberry?

OBAMA: Well, I'm, I'm negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House. Because, one of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day."

To help ensure that all of us - and the people we care for - can end our lives in the same purposeful way we lived them.

Here's how you can join the conversation:

Download the One Slide and donate just 2 minutes at the end of every presentation to sharing it with colleagues. Share it with your friends and family. Try to answer the 5 questions for yourself. Store your answers to the questions on our secure site. Make sure you and your loved ones can carry through your wishes.

Just one slide, just one goal. Together we can make an enormous difference.

I contacted Frank Eliason, Comcast Director of Digital Care, @comcastcares on twitter, after being unhappy with the support I was getting from Comcast. Someone from headquarters was calling me on the phone and relaying instructions to me from the Comcast/TiVo support people. I was frustrated because the suggestions did not match my problem and something was getting lost in translation.

Frank got me on a conference call with Comcast and TiVo to solve my problem

The call and live video helped solidify the issue so that they could go back and solve it.

It was much better than having to talk through an intermediary.

Frank at Comcast deserves a lot of praise for this.

He tweeted about it:

comcastcares @stevegarfield Interesting. I am glad that we had you talk with the right people [link]

comcastcares @stevegarfield That is awesome. You have to love the web 2.0 world [link]

They seem to have resolved my problem by refreshing my box with new guide data. They'll let me know the final results of their research next week when they call back to make sure everything is working.

Live streaming is a great way for remote support staff to see problems first hand.

"It is with great pleasure that I'd like to announce that we have completed work on our newsroom proposal for The Chronicle, the independent, student-run newspaper at Duke University. The Chronicle’s board has adopted our proposal for a new home. That document will now serve as the basis for negotiations with officials at Duke University."

I re-read Clayton Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (1997) over the last few days, and I’ve concluded he should write a new edition of the book that uses newspapers instead of disk drives as his central case study. Christensen found in his research that time and time again, disk drive companies were made aware of radical new innovations — there were even prototypes built — but chose to ignore them. Why? Because these innovations were disruptive and generated “no value within the established network.” In other words, if you take the disruptive idea and try to make it work inside a company’s existing cost structure, customers, resources, processes and culture, it would be a failure. So instead, these companies focus on incremental innovations and startups are able to take the disruptive ideas and run with them.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

"I'm the person responsible for the tweets of @don_draper, and thus kicking off that whole crazy adventure.

It basically started out as a research project of sorts for a thought I had about being able to extend a character from a TV show into social media in a real way and in doing so, having people connect to that character and the show in even more meaningful ways.

The goal was to just get enough evidence either way (to show that it was true or not true) and get out. Regardless of the outcome, I wanted to create a presentation on the experience and offer to turn over the account to AMC when I was done. But then the AMC shutdown happened, I made real connections with some of the people behind other characters, and it got a little too interesting to walk away from so quickly."

It's easy! Simply add the Universal Wish List button to your browser, and start shopping. When you see something you'd like on any website, just click the Add to Universal Wish List button, and the item will appear on your Amazon Wish List.

Take a look at my wishlist and you'll see all the charities I've added there.

"A federal judge has ruled a state law banning Massachusetts residents from buying wine from most out-of-state wineries is illegal.

Judge Rya Zobel of U.S. District Court in Boston, ruled that the law violates the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution because it lets all Massachusetts wineries to sell locally but blocks 98% of non-Massachusetts wineries from the local market for no good reason the court could discern (or words to that effect).

Thanks for Sean, Liz and The Duke! Also thanks to WCVB's Chronicle who was there to film me filming Freezepop. Also, Norhteastern University student Belen Bogado who there to film me being filmed by Chronicle.

Boston is full of cool Internet people. Why aren't they meeting each other?

INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY is Boston's monthly party gathering hackers, activists, artists, designers, nonprofits, startups, academics and general geekery to hang out and connect with one another.

*No agenda, no "networking," no presentations. Just beverages, food, ideas and cool people. *Best of all the price is free, just like your courtesy black helicopter flight to A Secure Undisclosed Location

*This time: come out and meet Boston's Secret Masters of Hidden Hackspace, Homebrew Mad Science, and Cyber Revolution*Also: hear about our scheme to rent a decommissioned missile silo. And how you can too, on less than $10 bucks a month. (No, seriously).

With Featured Guests and Organizations:*Jason Bobe, (DIYBio)*Meredith Garniss and Andrew Sempere,(Willougby and Baltic)*Alex Hornstein, (NUBLabs) (FabLab)*David Weinberger, (Joho The Blog) (The Berkman Center For Internet and Society)*Jake Shapiro, (The Public Radio Exchange)*Jason Scott (Textfiles)*Matt Lee (The Free Software Foundation)

After living on a farm in Lockport, Illinois, for 73 years, Harlow Cagwin sold his family land to a subdivision developer. Common Ground takes us on a journey exploring the differences and similarities of life in suburbia and life on the family farm.

One of the best examples of multimedia journalism I've seen this year.

He also had his students blog about it. This was very interesting to me, to be able to read blogs posts by the students, where they talked about my presentation. It's rare that you can get a glimpse of what others think about what you do.

Thanks to all the students for taking the time to write about my visit. Here are their posts:

Steve Garfield is the classic example of the 21st century journalist... Like a passable singer with the ability to chose the right producers to score a number one chart-topper, Garfield picks the right technology for his work through a new medium, and so far it's a hit.

On Wednesday, Steve Garfield (of SteveGarfield.com) talked to our class about videoblogging and how it could be used for journalism. He explained how he puts together video packages and streams live over the Internet...here's a video I shot, of him shooting that video:

Steve Garfield, video-blogger extraordinaire, came to our Reinventing the News class on Wednesday. He has this really awesome phone/camera/video that can shoot live through Qik, which streams live online. It was something I had never even heard about before he came to talk to our class.

In general, this was one of my favorite class presentations, because it really lends to the idea that sometimes the less equipment you have as a journalist the more people feel less threatened and will talk to you.

I think Steve Garfield’s visit was really illuminating. He’s the proof of what an entrepreneur journalist can accomplish by self promoting himself and taking full advantage of technology... Garfield is a great example of what a journalist that combines creativity, knowledge and a camera can achieve.

Garfield is obviously well-rehearsed in the different forms of video media and blogging, yet one of the sources of his success was, as he put it, as simple as filming himself and Carol talking about the debate in their room. The show, especially juxtaposed with his Qik demonstration, showed a wide spectrum of results that can come out of experimenting with video journalism and blogging.

The video-blogger Steve Garfield has a quaint style that probably differences him from other video-bloggers and citizen journalists. His videos are fun. Some may be news worthy, like the interviews he made for Rocketboom in the car fair.

I really like what Steve is doing by supplying obscure news like this to his audience. He is leading the way in video journalism and doing it with no professional sound equipment, camera, or even a studio. His only tools are his cellphone and laptop, very modern, very cool.

Note: I've also got the professional equipment, i just didn't bring that along to class.

Being someone that is new to the world of blogging and video blogging I thought that Steve Garfield's presentation was very informative to me. I was unaware of the websites that you could upload videos to and that you could upload videos directly from your phone to a website. During class Steve uploaded a video of our class directly from his Nokia cell phone to Qik.com and we were able to immediately watch it on the website.

Garfield showed us the power of live-streaming by taking a video of our class, which appeared on Qik shortly thereafter. He reintroduced us to the power of CNN's iReport and stressed the importance of self-advertisement, encouraging students in the film to plug their own blogs and, eventually, purchase domain names similar to their own. By the end of the presentation, I'm pretty sure we were all jealous of his cell phone.

Steve Garfield's vlogs are high on entertainment value and fit his personality.

However, his vlogs aren't simply for entertainment value. They are also designed to educate, like a recent video on the cost to file an absentee ballot, or to break news, such as when he interviews Duncan Hunter.

Of course, he excels in the weird, such as this coverage of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.

Garfield is renowned throughout the country for his ability to capture news footage without making a big production out of it. It's a one man band for Garfield as he takes advantage of Internet journalism tools: Twitter, Flickr, Myspace, Facebook.

The latest James Bond film "Quantum Of Solace" opened this weekend at the top of box office in North America with an estimated 70 million U.S. dollars over the three-day period, a record for the globally popular spy series, according to preliminary figures released Sunday.

"In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so."

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About Me

Steve is a Social Media Traveler. Companies, brands, and destinations send my wife and I on trips in hopes that we will publicly share our experiences via social media. Examples include opening festivities for the Hermitage Club and traveling with GMC to the Super Bowl. (Go Pats!) We are available for more branded experience trips.